Pope to ordain N.Z.’s first married priest

Press, 4 November 1986, Page 6

Pope to ordain N.Z.’s first married priest

PA Wellington New Zealand’s first married Catholic priest will be a former Angbcan vicar with four children, who has been diagnosed as having a terminal illness. Bishop Leonard Boyle, of Dunedin, announced last evening that Pope John Paul n had given permission to ordain a former Otago vicar, the Rev. George Alfred Arthur. Bishop Boyle said the Pope’s decision — the first permission for the ordination of a married man in New Zealand — did not mean the Catholic church was changing its stand on celibacy for the priesthood, it was an exception to the rule, he said. “Only in very exceptional cases and" for extremely good reasons is a

departure such as the present one from the rule of celibacy allowed,” Bishop Boyle said. Four married, former Anglican, priests were ordained in Australia in 1969, with other cases' involving Lutheran clergy in Germany more than 20 years ago and American Anglicans in recent years. Bishop Boyle said Mr Arthur had wanted to be made a Catholic priest since 1981, but earlier this year was diagnosed as having a terminal illness. The case for a married man to be made a priest could take two years or more to process in Rome, but Bishop Boyle applied in late June and the Pope granted permission on September 12. The Pope was told Mr Arthur might not have time to exercise his Catholic priesthood.

Bishop Boyle said yesterday the Pope had responded speedily out of sympathy and understanding. The document from Rome granting the permission said: “Pope John Paul, having weighed the whole matter very carefully. also took into account the special circumstances that applied in the case of Mr Arthur.” Mr Arthur, who was born in Dunedin in 1930, and ordained as an Anglican priest in the New Hebrides in 1964, served in Melanesia as a teacher and a priest from 1956 to 1966. He returned to New Zealand with his wife and family in 1966 and served in the Anglican Dioceses of Waiapu and Dunedin. In 1972 he resigned from the post of Vicar of Tapanui, West Otago. He entered the Catholic

Church in 1981. Mr Arthur has been on the staff of Blue Mountain College in Tapanui for more than 16 years — apart from a year in England and Europe with his wife and family in 1980. He taught chemistry, biology and science for eight years and was head of the science department for four years. Since he returned from Europe, he has worked as a guidance counsellor at the school and also leaches. Bishop Boyle said that after Mr Arthur’s ordination as a Catholic priest he hoped to continue work at the college, while doing priest’s work in Tapanui.

Mrs Arthur and their four children would continue to be members of the Anglican Church, the Bishop said.